Courtney's Got a Gun
by ChekhovTheTroper
Summary: The title appears to say it all, but it doesn't. She thought it would be easy, like it was for them. The hurt was quick, like a prickling needle or an unwanted bruise; but she held the gun and hoped that pulling the trigger would be the same. *AU. Songfic based off of "Janie's Got a Gun" by Aerosmith.*


**DISCLAIMER: ****_Total Drama _****is not in my possession, and I am trying to convince my bizarre Twitt-uh acquaintances that they can never shag Duncan in real life. Sorry, y'all, but you're not getting his Canadian bacon any time soon~**

**(QUICK NOTE: This is a songfic based off of "Janie's Got a Gun" by Aerosmith. The song deals w/ a girl who shoots her father to death after he sexually abuses her for too long. This fanfic focuses more on heartbreak and the darker look at the DunGweNey triangle. As opposite as they seem, trust me, things will get intense in this story)**

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It never occurred to Courtney Marriner how the old, remembered buildings blended together in her mind, like a spreading stain on an artist's canvas. _Always spreading_, her thoughts spat as the rain cascaded onto the overflowing juncture of Highway 99. Always spreading, yet never in sight—the thought of how many times she drove down this path should vex her, but instead, an adamant smile hung onto her lips.

The strategizing was enrapturing for her, being able to sketch out every stretched body and the many defunct tactics she could explore. She spent more than three weeks to only plan her entry. She was familiar with the location, as the nameless slipstream of years did not expect her memory to abate overtime. Her original plans called for something more sinister, something with greater shock value than meaningless gore. Courtney reiterated this, but took into consideration that overkill was not for shock, but mere satisfaction. The despicable thoughts satisfied her, indeed! It was so gruesome, shapes writhing—_dancing_—in the beclouding, chiaroscuro stupor. She found a bemused disgust in her eagerness, but she grew to accept it for the sake of her plans.

However, all that was on the floorboard was the gun. Inglis Hi-Power: 9mm, single-action, semi-automatic; 13-round capacity accompanied with a muzzle energy of 500 J and a velocity of 350 m/s. The details had always enthralled her, especially now. Small can equal more, the matronly voice in her head assured her. Make the world blind, learn so little from peace, and she set out to do just that. She finally escaped from traffic and made the northbound turn towards 152nd Street.

Her gun was packed away in the black bag, which slouched by her legs. The rest of her car was uncharacteristically squalid. Cellophane wrappers and clutters of illegible notes were strewn throughout the backseat; the puerile accessories found on the dashboard were missing, except for a severed bobble-head. The head had bounced away while the beheaded luau-dancer rattled helplessly from Courtney's agitated driving and the thunderous downpour that quarreled with her windshield. The radio was left untouched, however the queasy love songs nested in the cage of her subconscious. Now and then, she would hum the lyrics before swiftly dragging a set of lacquered nails down her face in order to focus.

Courtney argued that the only dirty thing present in the car was herself. She glowered at her reflection in the tilted mirror. A shapely face smirched by makeup, foreign shades of crimson and violet disaccording with the light crops of freckles on her cheeks. Her hair was unbrushed, but the knots that dwelled in her thick bob cut weren't immediately noticeable. She didn't wear any frivolous jewels or perfume to overstay her welcome, not if it meant making an unconvincing impression. Fresh bruises existed inside her arms; glassy inclines marred her hands. She was missing her shoes, but self-inflicted laceration wounds encircled her ankles. There was a thin string of blood on her cheek, but it would curtail as the night went on.

The city of Surrey augmented as she continued down the road, and the buildings were still there, caught in her nihilistic purview. The rain obscured her view, but Courtney saw very few people venturing through the streets with no transfixion. There were drivers that could not ignore the irate text messages from their romantic intendeds, and there were quavering throngs of women trying to take shelter in nearby cafes. Courtney ran her tongue over her lips, trying to mollify her rattling bones when the loop of houses came into vision. She took a sharp right turn towards them posthaste, the needle on her speedometer trembling. Unlit windows and closed doors, endless soap operas, hardly anything to eat beyond leftovers—_(the secretive laundry, the intimate denial, and always with the churlish alcoholism!)_—all minor things ablaze within a Marriner's memory. The car slowed down, now idling as she pulled into a familiar house's parkway.

Courtney unbuckled herself and reached down to grasp the hilt. With it in hand, she adjusted her angle, making sure that an inconvenient pop of the wrist wouldn't cost her a clear projectile. However, she froze, blinking numbly and setting it back inside the bag. She lurched over the steering wheel, her hand stiff whereas her other fastened into an uneasy fist. She examined the quaint tableau through her window, the rain letting up a little. Lit windows and open doors…with perhaps a hale essence in its brazenness? No, said the matronly voice, no you don't hear that. You don't hear—_he's probably fucking her as we speak, probably_—stop it, right now, there's no time for this. _No time for what? He had time, and she had a set of loose-legs? You heard that term before. Loose-legs and a happy face for some happy dick, nothing else!_

The fist shot across her face. A shallow gasp wilted from her mouth. She could feel a messy runnel oozing from her nose. It dotted her knuckles, thick and discolored in the pendulum-like shadows. She repeated the action several times, aiming for her eyes until the the skin felt tender. When she felt an oncoming shriek, she clapped the other hand to her mouth, letting the muffled sound eke out a sense of relief. It did not work, as something leaden burrowed into her chest, swelling against her ribcage. Her breathing was raw and ragged, already wasting some of her restricted courage. The voices argued on, thinly distinguishable by their tones. The defensive all-knower was languorous, but there was stark honesty in its statements; her matronly voice spoke without the Marriner Moxie, which greatly rankled Courtney. The fist twitched again, her other hand now cincturing around it to avoid distracting herself again.

She craned her head over her shoulders, twisting around in her seat. The facets of a happy relationship mingled with the picturesque humiliation. It was Senior Year of high-school, and her mother's blue-blooded socialite persona drifted into animalistic abandon behind closed doors, silky disagreements with a multitude of boyfriends morphing into explosive embraces, all reaching anticlimax in the dismal morning-after. Miss Marriner wore her hair in a bun, her face was always arched, and there wasn't a gala she didn't attend. Courtney remembered waking up one night to get a drink of water, and her mother was crouched in one corner of the breakfast nook. She only wore a T-shirt; her hair was delightfully unbrushed, and she was fiddling with an unnamed suitor's tie. Miss Marriner looked up at the ceiling, whispering a lewd prayer before sobbing with lavish misery. Courtney proceeded with her task and walked back to her room, but when she locked her door, she trembled silently before slinging her glass against the wall.

Courtney had considered moving in with her older sister, Alexandra, who was financially stable with her position as an astute teacher for underprivileged children. Courtney spent a trial week there, but was horrified to find that her sister was sexually enjoying herself, as well, to the point of having several medical scares in the past year. Courtney had applied for a standard scholarship beforehand, but was unsure if she could be secure with her minor position as a CIT and her part-time job as a local maid. However, during the last day of her visit, she noticed a disheveled man grappling with several hecklers in the apartment corridor. A generous impulse came over her, and Courtney broke up the fight. She used her prim voice and abundant legal resources to send the men away. She turned to this punk, this Duncan Reynolds, and forgot what piqued her interest enough to move in with him. Whether it was a rude remark that she questioned or ethereal banter that simmered down to accurate social stances, Courtney moved in with Duncan and never looked back.

They made love less than a month after meeting. Courtney tried to abscond from the blissful aspect when the image of her mother and sister came into focus.

There was playful nagging on the porch; there was a pleasurable interlude that went from once a week to everyday. Above all things, there was the egg timer that would go off when Duncan promised it would only be fifteen minutes until he went home. When it took thirty to sixty minutes more for him to break that promise, Courtney would calmly set the timer on the shelf with the salt-and-pepper shakers. When he anticipated her reaction, she would make a clumsy joke and calculate her means of seduction. However, if he provoked her enough, she would let fly. He never hit her, surprisingly, as a part of her hoped that he would so she could trot onto her pedestal with legal justification. He never stooped to that low, perhaps knowing she would cry abuse if he did, but it didn't stop the fights. It never stopped the escape into separate bedrooms or the tears that dribbled down Courtney's face in her flimsy slumber. The next day was worse, in her opinion, as she knew what constructed guise would be appropriate. They would have an abject conversation during breakfast about anything, like last night's hockey game or the annoying little kids that keep jump-roping in their driveway. The clattering dishes in the sink were neglected as the tentative embrace commenced, escalating into a regular, passionate rhythm. By then, she dressed for work and kissed him goodbye while he reclined in the threshold with minor contentment.

The train-tracks her thoughts rolled across crumbled the further she went, when the absences were extended and the fights were ignited when the door slammed upon his arrival rather than a curt excuse. Courtney admitted that she didn't try as hard as she'd hoped, but seeing Duncan's shirt loosely buttoned and leeching onto the incongruous scent of Bloody Caesars set off the powder keg. Her most notable mistake was how she reacted when the fights dwindled into the rigid goodnights. She felt the anger boiling more when she was losing the argument, not while the suspicions were serrated by seemingly piss-poor evidence. Courtney was too stubborn to surrender, but she would angrily offer him respect when he held his own with confident stride.

Then the voicemail came one night, during one of Courtney's insomniac crying jags. It was a woman's voice that smirked with a sour apology for calling at almost one in the morning, but apprehension melded into her tone with desire. At the cusp of her frantic questions about what will happen next, Duncan was standing in the hallway, visibly frightened and trying to cajole Courtney from the phone. She answered, demanding to know who this mistress was, to which she heard an awkward excuse about being his drama teacher, and was simply reading a previous monologue he wrote before critiquing it. Courtney meekly retorted that this woman's "student" graduated high school three years ago, and had dropped out of Drama Class there. Courtney hung up, turned to him with desperate eyes, and requested the truth. _"Alright,"_ he sighed before going headlong into the story about this underground club he went to that was hosted by an unabashedly alluring Gothic named Gwen Harrington, who was dealing with a messy breakup with some guitarist at the time. Duncan said that it was meant to be a one-night stand, but he continued the liaisons because he feared that Gwen misinterpreted the deed that was done. He didn't want to break a poor girl's heart—

Courtney had stopped him there, putting a finger to his lips and shushing him defeatedly. _"You didn't break a girl's heart…Two. You broke two."_

She wanted to say more. She wanted to kick and scream and reach for the sharpest thing in the kitchen, but at the time, she felt that words were all she could wound him with. After three and a half years of empty, vindictive repetition, Courtney Marriner and Duncan Reynolds officially ended their relationship in September of 2010.

She moved back in with Alexandra, who became more ambiguous with her sexual relations for the sake of her heartbroken baby sister. After that, Courtney had graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She attempted to find graduate programs in counseling/psychotherapy, but her grades and perspective on male psychology did not meet the strict requirements. She resigned from her CIT hopefulness and instead worked for a Master's in Librarian Science. She found a stable job as a librarian at Vast Centre, where her professionalism was met with mild respect from students and staff alike. However, that didn't save her from making jovial spiels about how all men have considered infidelity at one point. She spoke the truth on her own accord, unaware of any embarrassing secrets the staff members were hiding. On November 5th, 2016, Courtney was fired when her minute comments led to the assault of a male student, whose girlfriend was caught in a carnal conspiracy that resulted in the girl getting a blackened eye and a split lip.

During that time, Alexandra had beseeched Courtney to move out, saying she was tired of her sister's doleful whining about how terribly she was wronged and how all men are pigs, the type of complaints that were recurring in primetime television. Courtney complied without a rebuttal, moving into a local Motel 6 and trying to find part-time work again. She tinkered with several jobs, such as a stay-at-home hairstylist or a waitress with morning shifts. What happened during her nights off? Well, Courtney refused to say, as the lethargic bedsheets were never made and she often cried herself to sleep when she was left alone. Rumors sprouted soon after, and Courtney spent her days hiding in her room, ignoring the recognizable paramours that knocked on her windows to profess their illicit, but justifiable, jeers. The flickering bulb signaled her asperity, the discarded handheld mirrors shattered against the wall, and the bathwater was sullied by her carved hands that coveted the kitchen knife.

At this point, Courtney didn't remember what triggered the idea. She had not believed that they would still be together, but the inkling brewed to high levels when she moved into that inglorious room with much beckoning to others. She almost chuckled at herself for forgetting about the gun she had brought with her, and there was no thought about turning it on herself. No, that's what they'd want to happen, and she refused to sink deeper than she already had. With the film of recall ended and the present reality confirmed, Courtney unlocked her car door and snatched the gun, tucking it into her jacket's pockets.

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**A/N: This was originally meant to be a one-shot, but when I read the first two parts of this, I felt that it would be clunky if I didn't convert this into a two-shot. Anyways, it's really ironic how a song about a girl killing her father for raping her inspired my writing about some half-baked DunGweNey crime of passion. XD**

**So, the first part was buildup, but the second part (which will be posted soon, damnit) will be where shit hits the fan. Hopefully, you enjoyed this and be sure to leave a review. For every review you leave, a homeless puppy gets fed steak by a new owner. You don't want the puppies to starve, do you? Hurry, children! Review as fast as you can! :D**

**-Peace from the gun-troper**


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